Forever - Day 6, Whatever Tickles Your Fancy

Okay so I have already managed to lose a couple of days here, so this thirty day post may take a little longer than planned - oh well! Anyway today I am to blog about whatever tickles my fancy. And today what tickled my fancy was someone else's blog :)

The Slow Track to Everywhere is in fact my auntie's blog, and will be most interesting reading as it develops as her plan is to document her and her husband's seven year circumnavigation of the earth on their 35ft boat, Forever (unbelievably awesome, I know!). I have heard some of her stories, in her emails sent from the high seas, and others around dinner tables at various family functions, but I am looking forward to reading the complete works as she writes them, and hear her tales of her bohemian trip complete with exotic destinations, wonderful people and the odd bit of drama I am sure. The first instalment has me gagging for a trip to Palma already, so this is not a good sign for my travel budget - just hearing the prelude to their Great Trek is enough to make me want to jump up off the couch and run down to my nearest marina.

So if you are an avid blog reader, or just a travel enthusiast, allow my dear Auntie Peggy and Uncle Mike and their intrepid exploits on Forever to inspire you.

The Importance of Being Wilde - Day 5, My Favourite Quote

If you ever go to Paris, make sure you visit the Pere Lechaise Cemetery. It was a sharp, frigid day in November when my friend Tarryn and I visited it. We were 18 and had been spending our gap year before university abroad. We were hungry for new experiences, and had learnt so much in our few months away from home. Yet we were still so impressionable, sensitive and naive. Experiences that would no pass over me then profoundly changed my outlook.

The graveyard was icy - the grass crunching beneath our feet, our breath swirling in the air before us. It was strange to me to come to a cemetery, pick up a map and then hunt down the resting places of great men and women. I felt disrespectful as we clambered over the gravestones of unknown residents to marvel at the remains of Ingres and to hold a moment of silent vigil at the Marlboro and condom strewn grave of Jim Morrison. Pere Lechaise Cemetery is on a hill, and we made our slow progression up to the site of Oscar Wilde's memorial. As we came to the apex of the hill we saw a white, stone memorial. A large modernist angel dominates the tomb, and it reminded me of something in a Pharaoh's tomb. As Tarryn and I moved closer we realised that the surface of the angel was mottled in shades of raspberry, scarlet, fuschia, cherry and plum. Upon closer inspection these smudges were a collection of hundreds of kisses left by admirers. The grave is marked with a sign asking visitors to respect, and not deface it. And so, in deference to, or perhaps in spite of this sign, faithful followers have left this mark only. We were touched by the dedication to Wilde so long after his death, by the love he seemed to inspire. We had come seeking Morrison and in the process had found Wilde. And so we rouged our lips and silently pressed our pursed mouths to the cold stone.

We walked back down to the entrance quietly, mindful of the things we had encountered and suddenly well aware of our own mortality. Aware of the greatness that had gone before.

Over the next year I read every bit of Wilde I could get my hands on and fell deeper and deeper under the spell that had been cast when I first saw that strange angel. Wilde's wit was as sharp as a razor, his insight profound, and so below I present you with a select collection of Wilde's quotes:

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

"Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing."

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"I am not young enough to know everything."

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you."

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth."

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world."

"I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train."

"I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works."

"I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being."

"I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women when they love give everything."

101 Books to Read Before You Die - Day 4, My Favourite Book

Another impossible decision imposed upon me, and yet again I shall avoid it with aplomb. As you may know I am a passionate reader, and I pride myself on reading books that teach me something. I have read a lot of good books in my time - some of which I have thoroughly enjoyed, others of which have been rather bitter disappointments. Despite my dedication to literature generally there are certain gaping, and rather embarrassing holes in my reading, and so in order to remedy this I set myself a task. Exclusive Books, a book store in South Africa released a list of 101 Books to Read Before You Die. I have been reading in and around this list for about a year now.

Unfortunately, occasionally I get distracted by some lesser popular culture (lost a couple of weeks of valuable reading time to those bloody Twilight books) but I am moving through it, and reading some goodies that might be related to the list along the way. I have also invested in some of the ones left to read which I consider a step in the right direction too. So here it is:

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
Spud - John van de Ruit
The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres
Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee
My Sister's Keeper - Jodi Picoult
The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Cry, the Beloved Country - Alan Paton
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time - Mark Haddon
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Atonement - Ian McEwan
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Clan of the Cave Bear - Jean M. Auel
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Possession - A. S. Byatt
Perfume - Patrick Suskind
The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
Chocolat - Joanne Harris
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith
Q & A - Vikas Swarup
Dune - Frank Herbert
Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Fugitive Pieces - Anne Michaels
River God - Wilbur Smith
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Mort - Terry Pratchett
Crime and Punishment - Feodor Dostoyevsky
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
The Other Boleyn Girl - Philippa Gregory
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - John Boyne
The Prince of Tides - Pat Conroy
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
The Shipping News - E. Annie Proulx
Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm - George Orwell
The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
Watership Down - Richard Adams
Magician - Raymond E Feist
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Day of the Jackal - Frederick Forsyth
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
The Magus - John Fowles
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
The Shell Seekers - Rosamunde Pilcher
The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
The Beach House - James Patterson
Doctor Zhivago - Boris Pasternak
Kringe in 'n Bos - Dalene Matthee
The World according to Garp - John Irving
Northen Lights - Phillip Pullman
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Shades - Marguerite Poland
Kane and Abel - Jeffrey Archer
Fiela se kind - Dalene Matthee
Story of an African Farm - Olive Schreiner
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne

Weapon of Mass Distraction - Day3, My Favourite TV Programme

Choosing my favourite TV programme? It's unnatural, like choosing your favourite child. I know people who scathingly deem television a 'Weapon of Mass Distraction' and point all their furniture at a fireplace instead of at the 'idiot box'. They have never heard of McDreamy, or The Stig. They have no idea that America's greatest president by far was Martin Sheen, and that the reason men are choosing to wear suits again is thanks to the smooth masculinity of Don Draper. They didn't gasp when Mr Darcy dove into the lake and came out wet shirted, or cry when the Friends left that purple apartment for the last time.

As you can see I am a real television aficionado, a follower of great (and sometimes mediocre) television. I enjoy the weekly morsels of drama and comedy that get doled out to you in hourly increments, and I love to gorge on a box set, and not move from the screen for a weekend at least. I have indulged in total and utter brain trash (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Heroes) and lauded myself for my intelligent viewing decisions (Six Feet Under, Dexter). I have learnt lessons from TV, and quoted wisdom (Yes I am one of those people). I feel passionate about this most simple, and most corrupted, of cultural products, and so I cannot choose one, but I can give you a list of shows, in no particular order, I think you should not flick past...

The Sopranos

Mad Men

True Blood

Six Feet Under

Greys Anatomy

30 Rock

Glee

That 70s Show

Two and Half Men

The West Wing

Only Fools and Horses

Gavin and Stacey

My Name is Earl

The Mighty Boosh

South Park

The IT Crowd

Dexter

Fawlty Towers

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice - Day 2, My Favourite Film

It's so hard having favourites. Very restrictive - I like different things, at different times, for different reasons. However I think everyone has a film that they can always watch. When there is nothing else on you pop the DVD in, when you are browsing through channels and you chance upon it you stop surfing.

Beetlejuice is that film for me. I was four when it was made, and not much older the first time I saw it, and yet it never scared me, just fascinated me. Macabre though it is, it actually took all the fear out of death for me. Burton's stripes and swirls fascinated me from the onset, the homemade horror of it appealed to me - it was like a trip inside an imagination your parents didn't want you to see. And I see so much of his future films that I enjoy in these earlier baby steps. Michael Keaton's Beetlejuice is still one of my favourite villians - his diabolical plans are in no way personal, and he makes no apologies for his revolting behaviour, or wanting to marry a minor (Hmm - dodge). The hysterical concept of the after life being a civil servant run nightmare, staffed by suicide victims, dawned on me as I grew older, and appealed to my flippant sense of humour, and despite the strangeness of the host of characters, I find the wholesome, sweetness of the Maitlands and their floral house quite endearing (although it has always upset me that poor Geena Davis had to spend eternity in that god awful dress).

So yes, that is my favourite film. If you feel like a dose of young Burton, with some Winona, gothic humor, stop motion and Harry Belafonte thrown in, then pop down to your video store or onto Amazon now and organise that shit!

Almost Famous - Day One, My Favourite Song

Okay, the truth is I have gotten a little lazy over here lately. I get distracted by the (lame) machinations of so called 'real' life and forget the pure joy of chronicling my random little thoughts and experiences. Sometimes thinking of something to write seems like a chore, and so to get me back into the swing of things I am taking a little tip from the lovely Steph and decide to do the 30 Days Tag challenge. Basically I have a prescribed list of topics, of a personal nature, that I am going to blog on - one post per day. So wish me luck kids...Here goes Day One:

Tiny Dancer - Elton John

My favourite song is Tiny Dancer by Elton John. My mum, a lovely lady with dubious taste in music, has long been a fan of the self proclaimed 'pink poof' and I grew up with many of his legendary lyrics floating around my home and indoctrinating me to love the ballad. However, not until I watched Almost Famous did I realise that one of his songs was in fact my favourite. I think Tiny Dancer's association with the movie is what sealed it for me. This is a film about a bunch of girls in the seventies who have let go of everything that society expected of them and followed their passion (frequently that passion led them to the beds of rockstars, but have you seen Billy Crudup and Jason lee? I'm not complaining). They wear great clothes, listen to great music, take pictures on polaroids, and call themselves BandAids. The scene on the bus, when they begin singing Tiny Dancer is one of my favourite in movie history. It's about solidarity and friendship and acceptance and its one of those moments that if you are part of it you will remember forever. When William Miller tells Penny Lane 'I have to go home' and she replies 'You are home'. I have this feeling that if I was there I would be home too. It has inspired my best friend and I to call each other Ruby Tuesday and Tangerine Tree respectively, and makes one of my greatest dreams to follow a band around for a summer...All that from a song...

As if it wasn't great enough already, Dave Grohl then bestowed his blessing on the tiny song by playing a ridiculous version on a US Talk Show. Greatness.

City Image of the Day

The debuting of a new feature... Since I got my darling iPhone, I find that more often I stop to take a quick snap of some fancy or perculiarity in this beloved city... I then post it on that book of faces, or MMS it to a pertinent friend or something, and so I have decided to post a few of these random snaps here intermitently.

So ther first one to be posted I took on Monday this week. I was on my way home, walking past our local florist and as I passed by imagine my delight when I looked into the truck parked outside and saw these shelves of perfect flowers. Stacked up like that they reminded me of towels in a linen cupboard, smelling all fresh and clean. Lovely blocks of colour, textured by the petals. So pretty...

Elephants on Parade

One of the highlights of this here London summer that we have been having are the herd of elephants that colonised our fair city. Called the Elephant Parade it was a wildlife welfare project to benefit the Asian Elephant, who sadly is very seriously endangered.

Over 250 elephant sculptures, decorated in a variety of ways by everyone from famous designers to children, were displayed around London, outdoors, in areas where Londoners and tourists could actually interact with them. They were richly designed and beautifully decorated and they really became a part of the cityscape. Children climbed on them, at lunch time we sat on their plinths and ate our sandwiches, at time I orientated myself by them, and whenever I was in an unfamiliar area I found myself having a little hunt for a new one I hadn't seen before.

The process was that they were among us for a few months, and then they were removed away to a field and auctioned off to the highest bidder, having raised funds and awareness. And alas now they have been taken off to their new homes and London is left feeling rather forlorn as we wander past the spaces the colourful beasts once filled.

Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School

"...and clover being green is something I've never seen, 'Cause I was born to be blue."

I would never have thought of putting burlesque and cabaret performance together with sketching, but I sure am glad they did. Welcome to Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School. One part performance, one part art, one part cider - three of my favourite things. To be honest I really couldn't be sure what to expect when Bridget and I made our way over to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. The outing was Bridge's birthday present from me. Bridget is a talented, if a little out of practice, artist, whereas everything I draw ends up looking like I did it with my feet.

And so we arrived, rather expectantly, got our drinks and got settled. Our host for the evening was a slim, elegant gent with a beautifully cut suit and enviable eye make-up named Dusty Shadows. He explained that Dr Sketchy was started in New York, where it was taken very seriously by budding artists and graphic designers. In London it tends to consist of a bunch of tipsy amateurs more there for giggly doodling than any serious artistic pursuits. This suited us fine.

Dr Sketchy has all range of models and performers that grace their stage. At this session we

were treated to the Blue Lady, styled as Vladimir Tretchikoff's 'Chinese Girl' she sang old standards about 'being blue'. Her sulky, velvet voice couldn't be taken seriously when paired with splendid blue face paint as she drawled "...and clover being green is something I've never seen, 'Cause I was born to be blue." She posed for us, but I managed somehow to draw her looking like Miss Piggy?! And while Bridge's drawing's got stronger as we went along, mine some how managed to get weaker, and by the time we move on to sketching a camp, cabaret singing cowboy called Mr Meredith, my 'art' had stopped resembling anything remotely human.

The whole evening was a different experience, a stand out event in my week. While I became more aware that my artistic skills are somewhat lacking, I realised that I still very much enjoy trying to draw. And so my dear Bridget and I are looking forward to our next visit, and hopefully soon I will do something that is at least passable enough to post!

Isle of Wight 2010

Sorry about the silence. There has been rather a lot of work related drama over here, and this has caused my creative endeavours to take a bit of a back seat, not a good thing when the catharsis of writing is what keeps one sane! Anyway, since we last 'spoke' I have had a rather large adventure, my favourite type of adventure in fact. A weekend of song, sun and silly outfits all round at the Isle of Wight festival.

I have long wanted to go to this particular festival as it is the godfather of the English festival. It is the setting of one of the greatest Rock 'n Roll moments of all time. In 1970 Jimi Hendrix played to 600 000 people on the Isle of Wight, in his last major performance. Jimi came on round midnight to give everything he has left to give. Within three weeks he would be dead. Opening with a distorted version 'of ‘God Save The Queen’, he looks troubled, but sung and played with what has been described by some as a savage grace'. Someone sets the stage on fire after his set, like a wake for the 1960s. After Jimi's performance, and the havoc wreaked on the Island by its 600 000 hippie guests, the Isle of Wight would not host a festival for another 32 years.

The festival is now pretty corporate with its Marlboro only cigarette booths, ITV sponsorship and exclusive sale of Carling, however the energy of the crowd is reminiscent of its optimistic hippie ancestors. An older audience means less surly, stand offish teens, and more ridiculous twenty something eager to learn from the free spirited community left in their parent's generation. There were many a tie dyed sexagenarian floating around in a Debbie Harry bubble of euphoria as Blondie blasted the crowd with hits that don't seem to have aged at all, and ladies in their fifties were launched onto the shoulders of graduates as we all bemoaned our Hearts of Glass. Paternal types disseminated baby wipes to grossed out twenty five year olds as we all waited in the queues for lavatory facilities that at best could be described as short long drops (ick). Everywhere I looked were society's escapees, doused in glitter, sucked into Lycra, be-wellied and ready to rock out to anything from The Strokes to Crowded House. I bought a flower garland to wear in my hair, and was only too charmed when a spaced out lady wearing a hemp dress asked me if I had found Robin Hood yet, because I looked just like Maid Marion.

Maid Marion??

Londoners who would normally be found shouting at an overzealous commuter gave up on charging their iPhones (myself included), and instead of recording every moment on their cameras gave in to the experience and chatted to the person next to them as they queued for cider or basic sanitation. The sun shone for us, and by the time Paul McCartney took up the stage on Sunday it didn't matter that the heavens opened. In fact it was a blessing, as it served to wash away the wee that some ingrate had found it necessary to hurl into the crowd. My companions on this adventure, Tiff and Lara, were rather revoltingly splattered, but god bless the healing (and cleansing powers) of a Beatle, for after being severely anti-bacterialed, they continued to bop, and get their Hey Jude on.

Happy kids, even post the pee incident...

Sir McCartney was unbelievable. He showed himself to be every bit the Rock/Pop veteran as he charmed the crowd. I wept as he sang Here Today a tribute to John Lennon, and I felt my heart would burst forth from my chest as 45 000 people beseeched Jude not to make it bad. I am still a bit awed that I saw a Beatle, and floated for the rest of the night on that thought. After Paul left us with Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, we danced in the rain in ridiculous disposable ponchos and I couldn't think how it was possible to be any happier at that moment. Despite my dose of Year 2000 cynicism, and my inability to go an hour without sarcasm, I can't help but feel like those hippies were onto something with all their Peace and Love and Rock 'n Roll.

Viva Bafana Viva Africa

Double patriotism - representing all residents :)

The flags are fluttering out the windows in Isis Street. We are rolling out the patriotism for the world cup. Holding thumbs and flying flags is pretty much all we can do being so far away from home.

While the foreigners flood into SA I am envious of the immersion in our wonderful country, their experiencing of our culture, and friendliness and food. Having the world's spotlight focussed on us for a month makes me come over all patriotic, because at the moment I am seeing South Africa once more through fresh eyes. Adverts show our amazing landscapes, our sublime range of animals, our mixing pot of different ethnicities, and I find myself explaining the intricacies and anomalies of our culture to anyone who will listen.

And so tomorrow I will watch our proud, under dog team step onto an African pitch to the roar of thousands of bafana bafana fans. I will watch it on a little island in the English Channel, before attending an international music festival. And yet I know that there will have been few times when I have felt more patriotic, and indeed more South African.

"Let them bring their Mexican wave - we will bring vuvuzelas!"

The Only Boss I Listen to is Springsteen

Bruce Tote by Communitea on Etsy - Awesome!

Bruce Springsteen has been in my family since before I was born. My blessed aunt has loved him since she first heard his voice, and I so grew up Dancing in the Dark, feeling like I had been Born in the USA, and looking forward to my Glory Days. As my mind developed I felt like I was hearing the songs for the first time, the meaning of the lyrics sinking in, until I realised that I too at night felt the blood in my veins, just as black and whispery as the rain.

So last year I finally got to see The Boss in action!

I think this may have been the event I has been waiting for my entire life I swear to god! As I said I was singing Dancing in the Dark and watching him pull Courtney Cox up on stage at the age of 4...it’s been 20 years coming and by God it was worth the wait! Playing the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park, he opened with London Calling, and didn't once slow the pace. His talent for live shows (all three hours of it) was quite incredible. I always get scared before I see one of my greatest perform because if it sucks its such a blow, but there was no need to worry! He is so down to Earth, and you can tell he just loves to perform, so much so that he came on stage and played guitar with Brian Fallon during Gaslight Anthem's set (Bruce is Brian's hero - must have felt to him like being blessed by the pope). He is a born performer and after all those years knows just how to get the best out of a crowd - every show he talks to the crowd and asks them for their signs that request songs, and because people know that he does that they all bring them. They pass them over to him and he holds them up to the band so they know what they are playing next, then he props it up at the front of the stage and plays that request. They have such an enormous back catalogue and such a long set that they are pretty much able to play any song that he and the E Street band have ever written.

And so my plan now is to ensure that the world attends a Bruce concert every week and then the overwhelming awesome high of Bruce-ness would prevent war and anger and violence. That's a bit of pressure on Brucey, but I reckon what with him being a demi god he could handle it.

And so when I saw that tote going for sale on Etsy I had to have it. I'm sure you can imagine.